Posts tagged “tail feathers”

Yeah I know you could just right click and save this image but that is stealing and you have to deal with the watermark. I do believe that most people don’t want to steal and I am making it easy for to do the right thing anyway. You can download this image and dozens of others in high resolution, unmarked, to copy and enjoy for personal use by installing the Nature & Wildlife Picturesapp for iPhone and iPad.

With more than 60 high quality nature images free and for sale and support for 4 languages, version 3.3.2 of NWP was released today looking better than ever. Included in this version.

Just a quick little reminder that the Wildlife & Nature Pictures application that I have for iPad and iPhone contains 46 free full resolution images available for download and personal use. The application is a free download too. Counting it all up that means that there are 46 nature and wildlife images at no cost to you! When last I checked, that is less than a cup of coffee.

For real.

Wildlife & Nature Pictures is available world-wide in the Apple App store and is translated to Spanish with more languages coming soon.

You can download your free copy today at the link below or search for app id #595565558 outside the US.

Born from the desire to make better screenshots all the photography applications will get an enhanced AR experience on the next round of updates. The trio of apps will soon be able to save and share a snapshot of the augmented reality experience and return to viewing artwork in AR on the same screen. Users will be able to save the snapshot to Photos, other storage services, and social media. Now users can see what their own artwork looks like mounted on a wall and easily get an opinion from others.

Also included in this update will be a larger range of image sizes with a maximum of 1 meter (about 36″) sized artwork. Planned for an update later this Summer the apps will also have the capability to free stand on table and counter tops.

About this photo: This Osprey was photographed at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach California. If you click on the image the larger picture clearly shows that it has been tagged and the left leg has been shaved. There are tags on both legs also which indicates to me that this bird may have been recently released into the wild. I had first seen the Osprey six months prior to this photo and on numerous occasions afterward for at least a year. Difficult to photograph because they usually perch far from the ground. A skilled fisherman this bird can catch fish of a rather large size. It always returns to its high perch and in about a half an hour eats the entire fish. The fish you see in the picture is actually one of the smaller ones I have seen it pull out of the sea. The photo below is from the first time I saw the Osprey and you can see it was tagged at that time. It was taken with what considered to be a very soft lens and detail is not very good.

Getting back to the discussion a few weeks ago about feathers, I was wondering about tail feathers and what they do. Tail feathers are part of the flight feathers. Flight feathers encompass the primaries, secondaries, those are the wing flight feathers and the others are the tail feathers or rectrices. Those feathers act as a rudder, they control steering and balance. I should say that they help control the steering because if you remember the primaries are also critical for attitude and that is critical factor of steering in flight. Birds have ten to twelve tail feathers. According to Wikipedia:

Rectrices (from the Latin for “helmsman”), which help the bird to brake and steer in flight, lie in a single horizontal row on the rear margin of the anatomical tail. Only the central pair are attached (via ligaments) to the tail bones; the remaining rectrices are embedded into the rectricial bulbs, complex structures of fat and muscle that surround those bones. Rectrices are always paired, with a vast majority of species having six pairs. They are absent in grebes and some ratites, and greatly reduced in size in penguins.[8][17][18][19] Manygrouse species have more than 12 rectrices; some (including Ruffed Grouse and Hazel Grouse) have a number that varies among individuals.[20]Domestic pigeons have a highly variable number, due to centuries of selective breeding.

OK folks-that’s it for today. Just a couple of things to note between the two pictures, the good one was made in the winter and the other was made in June on one of the longest days of that year. One was made with the Tamron 200-500mm lens a good lens but the other with the amazing Nikon 300mm f2.8. It shows that it really pays to invest in good gear and to have the patience and desire to wait for the good moments, and know the behaviors of your subject.